650 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
of the commonest warblers in Leeds Co., Ont.; I have frequently 
seen the nest placed in some crotch of a small tree from five to 
twenty feet from the ground; the eggs are laid the first week in 
June. (Rev. C. /. Young.) 
Many nests of this species in past years have come under my 
observation; but it is only of those noted the present season that 
I purpose here to speak; on May 22nd I noticed a female redstart 
flying from a partly composed nest, the site of which was in the 
fork of a small maple sapling, and at an elevation of about eight 
feet from the ground; the nest could be easily seen, when the 
searcher’s gaze was directed to it, at a distance of four rods; the 
woods around it were rather open, and the leaves of the sapling 
were a yard or more above it; eight days after I found that this 
nest contained four of the warbler’s own eggs and one of a cow- 
bird, all of which were fresh; of all the warblers, the nest of this 
species is about the neatest and most firmly put together, the bird 
evidently emitting a good deal of saliva upon the material of 
which the nest is composed when she is placing the fragments in 
position; all this work, as well as that of incubation, appears to be 
done by the female, though it is probable that her more beautifully 
plumaged consort occasionally supplies her with food as she 
incubates her eggs; and he certainly largely assists in feeding the 
young and in trying to defend them if exposed to danger ; if the 
first efforts of this bird to propagate its species are successful, it 
does not nest more than once in the season, otherwise it will nest 
a second time; the materials of which the greater part of the nest 
of the redstart is composed is a kind of fibre gathered from 
decaying timber and the seed pods of various kinds of vines, and 
it is usually lined with animal hair; I have never known the set of 
eggs to exceed fourin number, and generally the second set con- 
tains only three, with the addition mostly of a cowbird’s; the eggs 
are of a whitish ground hue, marked towards the larger end with 
a wealth of spotting of a flesh-coloured hue, and smaller dots of 
the same hue scattered over the surface; another bird of this 
species was noticed building her nest at a much higher elevation 
deeper in the wood, and even in a more exposed position; but a 
few days after the nest was completed it wholly disappeared, and 
I suspected that an olive-sided fly-catcher that had made her nest 
on an overhanging branch, a few rods off, was the author of that. 
